PizzaExpress has confirmed more new openings on the motorway service station network in association with the Welcome Break group. PizzaExpress launched its first motorway site at Oxford Services last year, and will now open at South Mimms next Friday (8 June), following by sites at Fleet, Cobham and Beaconsfield later in the year. The South Mimms restaurant will have space for 90 people.
The D&D London group has signed a deal with Generali Real Estate to open a 9,257 square feet restaurant on the 14th floor of the 120 Fenchurch Street development by Leadenhall Market. The restaurant will be housed below a public sky garden and will open in spring 2019.
Redcomb Pubs is to relaunch its Alphabet brand on Upper Street in Islington. It has secured a deal for the former Cabana restaurant with the help of Davis Coffer Lyons, and will open there in August after a £600,000 refurb. The site will be part of Redcomb’s Urban Social division.
Côte has submitted plans to open a restaurant in Haslemere in Surrey. It wants to convert a former bank building on the town’s high street, local media report.
Healthy food and juice chain Crussh! is to open around 35 new sites in partnership with contract caterer Sodexo over the next five years. The deal will see the brand open in sites including universities, hospitals and workplaces, with the first launches expected before the end of the year.
JD Wetherspoon has applied for permission to convert a former Lloyds Bank on the Strand in London into a major new pub. It would operate on basement, ground and mezzanine levels. The plans for the Grade II listed building are now out for consultation from Westminster council.
Nando’s is to open a new restaurant at the Spirit of Sittingbourne leisure and retail development in Kent. Construction will start in the summer on the site, which will also be home to Wildwood and PizzaExpress. The Sittingbourne scheme will launch next year.
The Ivy restaurant group says it will open its new brasserie in the Victoria Quarter in Leeds in the autumn.
Darwin & Wallace has just opened its sixth all-day bar and restaurant in Wimbledon. The venue, like D&W’s five previous venues, is named after its address: 601 Queen’s Road
The Edinburgh-based Bon Vivant group is opening three new venues in the city: a second site for its El Cartel Mexican brand on Teviot Square, and two new restaurant and bar operations in the Edinburgh Grand development on St Andrew’s Square, which launches this week. The openings will add to Bon Vivant’s three current sites in Edinburgh, and follow a new financing deal with Allied Irish Bank.
Chinese restaurant and bar operator Tattu is to open two new sites in Birmingham and Edinburgh. Work starts soon on the first of the new venues, a 6,500 square feet space in Colmore Row in Birmingham, with a 4,680 square feet to follow at the St Andrew Square development in Edinburgh next year. The openings will double the size of Tattu, which launched in Manchester in 2015 and added a venue in Leeds in 2017.
A Taiwanese fruit tea brand called YiFang has moved into the UK with a kiosk on Shaftesbury Avenue and plans for a second unit on Moor Street in the next couple of months. Yifang has opened 600 stores around the world since launching in 2016. Shelley Sandzer acted for YiFang in the deals. The brand has previously operated as a mobile venture at Old Spitalfields Market.
Brazilian rodizio concept Estabulo is opening a fifth restaurant in Harrogate next Friday (8 June). It joins sites in Beverley and Wakefield, and two in Leeds.
Ziferblat, the pay-by-the-minute café concept, will open a third Manchester site in early 2019, on Princess Street near St Peter’s Square. The concept charges eight pence per minute, with food and drinks then unlimited. Ziferblat already has Manchester venues on Edge Street and at MediaCityUK, with plans to open in Leeds and Sheffield too.
Brighton Indian restaurant The Chilli Pickle is to open a second location in Guildford in July, local media report. It follows a fundraising campaign to support several new openings. The original Chilli Pickle restaurant opened in Brighton in 2008.
